Al Franken

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise to talk about the historic vote the FCC took today to preserve Net neutrality and maintain a free and open Internet. But before I turn to that exciting news, I want to take just a moment to talk about the urgent need to pass funding for the Department of Homeland Security. The Republican leadership has wasted a lot of time over the past month politicizing this issue, and now we find ourselves on the brink of a completely preventable shutdown of DHS. I think every American agrees that funding for Homeland Security is too important to play politics with. Last year Democrats and Republicans came together and passed a clean bill to fund the Department for a full year, and we should do the same this year. I am pleased the Senate Republicans have agreed to take up a clean funding bill, and I hope the House Republicans will quickly do the same. Net Neutrality Turning to today's good news, I am thrilled to report that this morning the Federal Communications Commission voted to adopt new rules to preserve a free and open Internet. This is a big win for the 280 million Americans who use the Internet. I want to congratulate FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and thank him for his leadership on Net neutrality. The FCC has taken a crucial step to ensure that the Internet remains the platform for free expression, innovation, investment, and economic growth that it has always been. The new rules will offer meaningful protections for all Internet users. They promise to preserve the Internet's status as an open marketplace, a place where everyone can participate on equal footing, free from discrimination by broadband providers--the companies such as Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T that provide consumers with access to the Internet. That is what Net neutrality is all about. Net neutrality isn't some radical new idea. It is the simple and longstanding principle that all lawful content on the Internet should receive equal treatment from broadband Internet service providers, regardless of who owns the content or how much money he or she has in the bank. It means broadband providers can't pick and choose which Internet traffic reaches consumers and which doesn't. This idea has been part of the architecture of the Internet from its very start. Because of Net neutrality, an email from my constituent in rural Minnesota reaches me as quickly as an email from my bank. Because of Net neutrality, the Web site for my local pizzeria loads as quickly as the Web site for a national chain. Because of Net neutrality I can stream videos of my amazingly cute grandson just as easily I can stream a hit TV show, and he is amazingly cute. It is because of Net neutrality that companies such as Amazon, Facebook, and YouTube are household names. Once startups, these are now billion-dollar companies employing thousands. Net neutrality gave them the chance to compete on a level playing field. Their success is a testament to both American innovation and the power of a free and open Internet. For me, the bottom line is this. The Internet is a vital part of our daily lives. Net neutrality is at the core of how the Internet operates. It is critical to our democracy and to our economy that it continue to operate in this manner. All of the amazing innovation and growth on the Internet did not just happen while we had Net neutrality; it happened because of Net neutrality. This is not the first time the FCC has sought to protect Net neutrality. Twice before they have tried to implement rules which were then challenged by the big broadband providers and basically struck down by the DC Circuit. It was not that the Court thought that the rules were bad policy, but rather that the FCC had not invoked the proper legal basis. Since the second court decision last year, we have seen a lot of debate about what the FCC should do. Many of us have called for stronger rules. We have argued that those rules must be grounded in the FCC's authority under title II of the Communications Act if they are going to survive judicial scrutiny and withstand the test of time. Of course, the big broadband providers pushed for the FCC to move in the opposite direction, to take a weaker approach. Why? Well, without Net neutrality they stood to make a ton of extra money. These guys wanted the FCC to allow them to charge Web sites access to fast lanes to reach consumers. Then only those sites that could afford to pay would see their content delivered at the fastest speed ever. Everyone else would be relegated to a slow lane. Only those with very deep pockets would be able to afford to pay for the fast lanes, and the broadband providers would have profited at the expense of everybody else. I fiercely opposed this. Millions and millions of my fellow Americans did too. Consumers and business owners spoke out and urged the FCC to adopt rules that would protect--not destroy--Net neutrality. They made the case for Net neutrality in clear and compelling terms, arguing that strong rules are essential for the future of the Internet. With today's vote, the FCC has provided those much-needed rules. The new rules are strong, clear, and enforceable. They will prevent broadband providers from blocking or throttling lawful online content. The rules will stop providers from charging Web sites for access to fast lanes. The FCC is implementing these rules within a time-tested legal framework that will allow the agency to respond to challenges to Net neutrality that arise in the future. Following the commonsense path that I and a number of my colleagues have long urged, the FCC has recognized that broadband Internet access is a title II service, a telecommunications service. Last spring, I could not have predicted that we would be celebrating this victory today. The best principles of our democracy have won out. It is clear that the voices of the American people have been heard. I have often called Net neutrality the free speech issue of our time. I believe that exercising our free speech right has been key to our success and will continue to be the key to our success. Today does not mark the end of our work--the work of all Net neutrality supporters to safeguard our free and open Internet. Some of my Republican colleagues have decried the very idea of Net neutrality. More recently others have purported to embrace the concept but at the same time have tried to stop the FCC from taking meaningful action. My friend Senator John Thune has drafted legislation that would strip the FCC of authority to regulate access to broadband Internet services. Along with many of my colleagues, I made clear that I regard this as a nonstarter. In the weeks and months ahead, I and other Net neutrality supporters will need to continue to speak out, to make sure everyone understands what is at stake, why we stand by the strong rules adopted by the FCC and why we oppose efforts to strip the FCC of its authority or to weaken Net neutrality protections. This will take a lot of hard work. Some folks really just do not get it. Back in November, my friend Senator Ted Cruz referred to Net neutrality as ``ObamaCare for the Internet.'' It was a statement that seemed to demonstrate just a basic misunderstanding of what Net neutrality is and how the Internet works. For that matter, tens of thousands have seen a YouTube video of Senator Cruz attacking FCC efforts to protect Net neutrality. I will just pause to note that the video reached many viewers, and the reason it did was that it was uploaded to YouTube, a site that would not have flourished were it not for Net neutrality. It was because of Net neutrality that YouTube, a company founded by three guys in an office over a pizzeria in San Mateo, CA, was able to compete against and ultimately overtake the well-funded competitor, Google Video. In his video Senator Cruz compared an old rotary phone to a modern cell phone. He claimed that the landline was an example of stagnation due to FCC regulation under title II, while cell phone innovation was a product of noninvolvement by the government. The attempted comparison fails for many reasons, not least because the telephone services on cell phones have long been subject to title II. In fact, the FCC is taking the same kind of approach to applying title II to broadband access services as they have taken in applying it to mobile voice services, where I think we all agree there has been robust investment and innovation under title II. In the coming months, I expect that we are going to confront a lot of this kind of confusion and misinformation or disinformation. We are going to encounter plenty of people who oppose Net neutrality because they do not understand how the Internet works or do not understand the relevant legal authorities or, frankly, are willing to personally obfuscate to advance their own agenda. I hope the American people will remain engaged on this issue, that they remain willing to speak up, to use the Internet to spread solid information, to organize support, and ultimately to counter the deep-pocketed ISPs and the politicians who may seek to undermine Net neutrality. I do believe that with the same energy and determination that has gotten us this far, Net neutrality supporters can make today's historic vote a lasting win for the American people. I yield the floor.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the funding for the Department of Homeland Security and the continuing need for immigration reform. We need to fund the Department of Homeland Security and we should pass a clean DHS funding bill. That is the only bill that can pass the Senate, and that is the only bill that should pass the Senate. Once that bill has passed the Senate and the House and becomes law, then we can and should move on to consider immigration legislation. Republican leadership in the Senate has wasted a lot of time over the past month politicizing immigration and mixing it up with the issue of funding this Federal agency that helps to protect the United States from terrorists and other threats, and those threats are real. Just this past weekend, the terrorist organization al-Shabaab issued a threatening video suggesting that the Mall of America in my State of Minnesota could be a target for a terrorist attack. Look, this issue is not something we should be politicizing. We should enact into law a clean funding bill for DHS, and we should fund the Department for the whole year and not make the Department run for a short time on a continuing resolution and just revisit the issue in the near future. That is not what we want. And then we should and can debate immigration. I have always believed the best way to accomplish meaningful and sustainable immigration reform is through congressional action. In the last Congress, the Senate took such action. As a member of the Judiciary Committee, I was very proud to play an active role in the comprehensive immigration bill the Senate passed with broad bipartisan support. For me, this was a model of how the Senate was supposed to work. Four Senators from each side of the aisle, known as the Gang of 8, came together and crafted a bill which we then marked up in the Judiciary Committee, and I was very pleased that a number of my amendments were included in the bill, which then went to the Senate floor and passed with 68 votes. That bill would have provided a real and comprehensive overhaul of our broken immigration system. It would have significantly strengthened our border security, and it would have helped a lot of people--from small businesses to families in our legal immigration system to the many undocumented immigrants who would have an opportunity, through a tough but fair path, to get right with the law. There are millions of people in our country who want the same things that all of us want--a steady job, excellent education for our children, and a brighter future for their families. But they are living in limbo and often in fear. Our bill would help them come out of the shadows and get right with the law. The Senate passed our bill in June of 2013. I was very hopeful the House would take up and pass the Senate bill. If the House had allowed a vote on the Senate bill, it would have passed the House and been enacted into law. That would have meant real and lasting reform to our broken immigration system. Unfortunately, over the course of the next year and a half the Republican leadership in the House failed to act on the bipartisan immigration reform bill passed in the Senate--again, with 68 votes. The President took a step forward that will help a lot of people and will help to address fixing our broken immigration system. While I still believe Congress needs to act, I think we need to keep the Executive actions in place until we do. I will not support any legislative effort to undo President Obama's Executive actions. We are presented with a choice. Once we pass a bill into law to fund the Department of Homeland Security, we can take a step forward and help a lot more people by passing comprehensive immigration reform or we can take a step backward and harm a lot of people without getting any closer to the comprehensive immigration reform we need. I will vote to move forward, not backward. We need a fully funded Department of Homeland Security, and we need a comprehensively overhauled immigration system. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Murphy be recognized for up to 5 minutes following my remarks.

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise to talk about an amendment I have offered with Senators Stabenow and Manchin, which is amendment No. 17 to S. 1. Our amendment recognizes the importance of the iron and steel industries in our country and ensures that if the pipeline is built, it is built with American iron and steel so we can create more jobs and strengthen our economy. Congress has had a long history of using ``Buy American'' provisions in order to maximize the economic benefits of infrastructure projects. ``Buy American'' provisions ensure that more goods and manufactured items used in infrastructure and other projects are produced here at home. In fact, as recently as 2013 Congress passed a provision in the WRDA Act--the Water Resources Development Act--to require the use of iron, steel, and other domestically produced goods in water infrastructure projects. That is important because it means that we keep jobs and profits here at home instead of sending them abroad. Unfortunately, there is no such requirement when it comes to construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline. In fact, according to TransCanada itself, half of the pipe for the U.S. portion of the pipeline would be sourced from foreign countries. And for the other half that would be put together here in the United States, much of the raw material, such as the steel that goes into the pipe, could be sourced from overseas. This is the problem our amendment addresses. Our amendment would require the use of domestic iron, steel, and other manufactured goods in the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, provided the material is readily available and affordable. If adopted, the amendment would create jobs for iron ore miners, such as the ones across the Iron Range in my State of Minnesota. It would create more jobs for shippers who ship the ore across the Great Lakes or by rail or down the Mississippi River. It would create more jobs for our steelworkers who work in steel mills across this country. At the same time, we specify in our amendment that these requirements would be implemented consistent with our trade agreements. Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have said we shouldn't put such restrictions on a private company. But we have to remember that this isn't your typical private company. The underlying bill to authorize the pipeline would throw out the established approval process for the construction of a cross-border pipeline by a foreign corporation. That means all of the important assessments regarding things such as safety and the environment that our Federal agencies might have made on this project are tossed by the wayside. So if Congress is going to intervene on behalf of this foreign company, then the least we can do is to make sure the company building the pipeline uses American-made iron and steel. This is a very pragmatic amendment. We all have different views on the approval process for this pipeline, and while I believe Congress should not circumvent the approval process we have in place, I think we can all agree that we want jobs here in America. So I invite my colleagues to stand up for our domestic iron and steel producers by supporting my amendment. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Caitlin Murphy, a fellow in my office, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the 114th Congress.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. I thank the Presiding Officer. Amendment No. 17 I wish to urge my colleagues to oppose any motion to table my amendment. My amendment is about making sure that, if we do build the Keystone XL Pipeline, it is built with American iron and steel. Those are jobs. I don't wish to short-circuit the process here, but if the pipeline is built, it should be built with American steel. The Presiding Officer's State produces a lot of American steel and very often with iron ore from my State. These are American jobs. TransCanada has said that 50 percent of the iron and steel will be outsourced from other countries, and the iron and steel for some of the other pipes could come from other countries. They also said they can use those pipes in other projects, including other projects in Canada. I agree with Senator Cornyn when he said these construction jobs that will help build the pipeline are real jobs. Just because they are not permanent jobs does not mean they are not real jobs. Providing the iron and steel and other manufactured products for this project will also provide real jobs. Our amendment will do this entirely and consistently within the language of the bill and within our trade obligations. I ask that my colleagues not vote to table this amendment because a vote to table this is a vote against American jobs. It is a vote against jobs in Ohio and Minnesota. It is a vote against the shippers who ship our iron ore over the Great Lakes or by rail or over the Mississippi so it can be used to make steel. We have done ``Buy America'' legislation before. We just did it in 2013 on the WRDA bill. I ask that my colleagues please not vote against American jobs. I thank the Presiding Officer.

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I have the greatest respect for the Senator from Alaska. I wish to say a few things about this private company. This company is asking us to do an extraordinary thing. We are debating this on the floor because they are asking us to circumvent the environmental and safety process here and possibly expose the United States--and the path of this pipeline--to tremendous environmental damage. This is very different. The Senator asked: Why won't this extend to every private enterprise? This is something we are here debating and voting on, and that should say something about the nature of this issue. The United Steelworkers have endorsed my amendment. This is about American jobs. The question is: If we do build this pipeline, should it be built with American steel or should it be built with steel from other countries? Again, in the bill, we make sure this is compliant with our trade obligations. There is nothing to stop us from doing this. This is a private foreign company that is asking us to circumvent our normal processes, and because of that, I feel we have the right to say this should be made with American steel and with jobs in the State of Ohio and in the State of Minnesota--American jobs. If this is about American jobs, let's make it about American jobs. Again, this is a company that is asking us to circumvent our normal processes. So all I will say is that TransCanada has said the pipes that have been made for this can be used in other projects in Canada. If we are going to build this project, let's make it about American jobs. I thank the Presiding Officer.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. I rise to talk about Senator Harkin. As the soon-to-be Chairman of the HELP Committee, Senator Alexander is right about the HELP Committee, it is an important committee. Sometimes I say it is not that important unless you care about your health, your kids' health, your parents' health, your kids' education or your education, if you want to work sometime in your life, and you plan to retire. Other than that, it is not very important. But I want to talk a little bit about Tom Harkin, not as a Senator but as a staffer. We have seen today when the Senators give their final speeches, they talk about their staff. Tom came in 1969 as a staffer for Neal Smith from Iowa. The staffers, as much as we treasure our staffers, they love this work for their Member and they love working in this institution, and they love working in Congress--at that point he was in the House. So at this point he is, I believe, 29 or 30 years old. This was during the Vietnam war, and there was something called Vietnamization. President Nixon asked a congressional delegation to go to Vietnam to look at how Vietnamization was working and what was going on. While Tom Harkin was there as a staffer, a couple of Congressmen were told about some conditions on an island called Con Son where there were prisoners that the South Vietnamese Government was abusing very badly. The Congressmen requisitioned a plane to go to Con Son, about 100 miles off the coast of the mainland of Vietnam, and I believe the supervisor of the group who was there to talk about the Vietnam prison system said this was sort of like a Boy Scout recreational camp--that is exactly what he said. So when they landed there, Tom took a couple staffers and Members, got a map from someone who had told him about this secret prison, and found it, where there were people being horribly abused. Tom took pictures. Tom was told to turn over the film. Tom didn't turn over the film. Tom was then told that his employment in the Congress depended on him turning over that film--a 30-year-old staffer at the beginning of what most staffers hope is a career. That film showed up in ``Life'' magazine and had a profound effect, and Tom's career was over. That takes a lot of guts. That takes courage. That takes the courage of your convictions, and that is what I have seen in Tom Harkin. I learned about this when Franni and I went with Ruth and Tom on a codel to Vietnam. I just spoke about Carl Levin and talked about a codel with him, and I talked about this codel with Tom. I have got to go on more codels, I just figured out. This is what I observed, because this was the Chairman of the HELP Committee, and I got to watch that courage and that courage of his convictions, as well as what Lamar talked about, working well across party lines. I hold the seat that Paul Wellstone formerly held. I would say that Tom was Paul's best friend. Tom every once in a while talks about his brother and the experiences behind Tom's signature achievement, the Americans with Disabilities Act. Paul Wellstone led on mental health and mental health parity, and that was because of his brother. And that is the legacy I want to carry on. I have not had Paul here to be a role model, but I have had Tom Harkin, and it has been a privilege. I thank the Senator.

Mr. FRANKEN. I want to echo what everyone has said. I had the honor of traveling on a codel with Chairman Levin to Pakistan, Afghanistan, when I had been here just a few weeks. So I was traveling with the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. The respect he got from everyone--from the generals down to the privates, especially in Afghanistan--was remarkable. Carl fought to increase the ratio of our troops to contractors. When we took the majority back in 2006, Carl started doing the kind of oversight of the contracting that had led to a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse in Iraq. He has used PSI in the way it was intended by Harry Truman. I thank him especially for the work he did on the credit rating agencies, Wall Street credit rating agencies. Right now Standard & Poor's is being prosecuted by--or sued by the DOJ for about $5 billion. Part of what they are using are emails the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations obtained, in which basically the credit rating agencies internally were saying we better give this a AAA rating; otherwise, we are going to lose our business. That in no small way led to the meltdown we had because all this junk was getting AAAs and those were bets on bets on bets on bets and that is what led to the meltdown. Carl always seems to go to where that kind of top-down fraud or malfeasance is going. When we talk about--as he opened, as Sherrod mentioned when he talked about the disparities and how this is rigged very often from the top down, talking about the offshoring and the work they did in PSI, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations--that is, on tax havens on inversions--and I hope to take that up as Carl leaves. Carl leaves a lot of unfinished business. Everything that has been said is who Carl is. Everyone should know that. One thing that has not been said is hamisha. Carl, you are one of the most hamish men I have ever known. Thank you. I yield the floor.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I was a part of that class. I was a little late getting here, my colleagues will recall. But I was part of that class and campaigned with the class, and I remember being with Mark Udall and Tom Udall and Mark Begich at a campaign event, and they kind of looked at me and said: So your dad wasn't like a public servant. I said: No. And they said: Well, that is unusual. No, no, that is fine. What a lot of people don't know about Mark is his father died very famously in a plane crash. Mark is the only Member of this body, I believe, who did not graduate from college, did not go to college. There are a lot of things about Mark--and Mark Warner just referred to it--he was a chief executive. We need more mayors here. Sometimes we say we need more diversity. Sometimes we say we need more women. God knows we need more satirists-- but mayors, wow. Having that mayor's perspective--Cory Booker looking a little smug--is very useful. Mike Enzi, a mayor--am I forgetting a mayor?

Mr. FRANKEN. Bob Corker. Whom are you pointing at? Tim, were you a mayor?

Mr. FRANKEN. Oh, Richmond, you just kept saying Richmond. I don't know anybody named ``Richmond.''

Mr. FRANKEN. So he was a lieutenant governor too--OK. So he is the most qualified. This is what it is like when we are together. Being a Senator, a lot of people ask: Is being a Senator as much fun as working on ``Saturday Night Live?'' The answer of course is no. It is not close, but it is the best job I have ever had. It means so much to us what we can do for our State, and no one knows more about his State--and I know Mary Landrieu is sitting here, no one knows more than Mary and Mark--and that it is an incredibly long flight he took every weekend to go back to Alaska. Minnesota had a happy warrior, one of the great, great Senators who has ever served this body, Hubert Humphrey. We may have noticed during Mark's speech he teared up a few times, the most when he was talking about his wife. That is good for you. That works out well. But Hubert Humphrey said: ``A man who has no tears has no heart.'' This man has a tremendous heart. Humphrey was a happy warrior, and this guy is a happy warrior--and you brought joy, humor, and optimism to this body, and I thank you, my friend, for that.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I thank the generous Senator from Michigan, and I thank the Senator from New Hampshire for her remarks about the Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act. I have held college affordability roundtables around my State of Minnesota ever since I got to the Senate. It is astounding how hard students work while they are also in college. I remember speaking to the student governing body from MnSCU--the Minnesota colleges and universities student body--and I asked: How many of you work 20 hours a week? They all raised their hands. They were in the governing body. I said: How many of you work 30 hours a week? A few raised their hands. I said: How many of you work 40 hours a week? A couple raised their hands. These students work while going to college. In Minnesota students graduate with more than $30,000 in student loan debt. We are about fourth in the Nation. I heard Senator Shaheen say they are second in the Nation. This bill would help over 550,000 Minnesotans and 25 million Americans cut down their debt and keep more of their hard-earned checks. A few months ago I had a roundtable at the University of Minnesota, and I met Joelle Stangler. She happened to be the student body president at the University of Minnesota. She was the valedictorian of Rogers High School in Minnesota with a 4.12 GPA. She doesn't lack motivation. Both of Joelle's parents were teachers. In fact, she comes from a long line of educators going back six generations. You will see why I am telling this story. A couple of years ago Joelle's mother Cassie Stangler made the tough decision to quit her job as a fifth grade teacher to go to work in the private sector because she could make more money in the private sector. She needed to do this because she had four kids in college. Among the fifth grade classes in Mrs. Stangler's school district, her students showed some of the highest rates of improvement in test scores. This is what I am talking about--we lost a great teacher because of the expense of postsecondary education. Even with her mom's sacrifice, she has $12,000 in student loans, and she estimates that her total debt will be around $30,000 by the time she graduates. There are so many students such as Joelle who are drowning in debt in Minnesota and across the country. Student debt totals are over $1.2 trillion, and it is a threat to our economy. We are seeing young people delay decisions to start a business, to start a family, to buy a home, or make other types of purchases that make an economy grow. But there are commonsense solutions, and they are contained in our Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act. Our bill simply allows students and graduates to take advantage of lower interest rates and refinance their loans. That is what people with mortgages, car loans, and business loans can do. They can take advantage of lower interest rates and refinance their loans, but the government will not refinance student loans, and that is just not right. In the summer of 2013 we came together in Congress to prevent the interest rate on new student loans from doubling. Thanks to that effort, undergraduate students taking out new loans now pay a lower rate. Our bill would enable students and graduates who are saddled with higher interest rates on their undergraduate loans to refinance at the same lower interest rate. The bill would similarly enable Americans with graduate student loans or PLUS loans to refinance at lower rates. Student debt is holding Americans back, it is holding back our economy, and that is why we need to pass this bill. I thank the Presiding Officer and yield to the Senator from Michigan.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, I will just come out and say it. Citizens United was one of the worst decisions in the history of the Supreme Court. It was a disaster, a radical exercise of pro-corporate judicial activism. It was seriously flawed both legally and factually. Legally, the Court trampled its own precedence--cases such as Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and McConnell v. Federal Elections Commission, which had been on the books for years and stood for the obvious proposition that the people can enact reasonable limits on money and politics. Factually, the Court rested its conclusions on the faultiest of premises--that unlimited campaign expenditures by outside groups, including corporations, do not give rise to corruption or even the appearance of corruption. That assessment is disconnected from reality and is horribly out of touch with the sentiments of most Americans. For example, the Minnesota League of Women Voters issued a report in which it concluded that ``the influence of money in politics represents a dangerous threat to the health of our democracy in Minnesota and nationally.'' I think if you asked most people whether unlimited spending on campaigns has a corrupting effect, they would agree and say, yes, of course it does, and I think they would be right. But the decision in Citizens United was based on this unfounded and unbelievable idea that we have no reason to be concerned about the effects of unlimited campaign spending. So we have this 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision that ignores the law, ignores precedent, invents facts, and as a result we ended up with a campaign finance system in tatters--one in which deep-pocketed corporations, superwealthy individuals, and well-funded special interests can flood our elections with money, thereby drowning out the voices of middle-class Americans who don't have the luxury of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars or hundreds of millions of dollars to influence the political process. This is real. Spending by outside groups more than tripled from the 2008 Presidential campaign to the 2012 Presidential campaign when it topped $1 billion. Outside spending went from $330 million in 2008 to over $1 billion in 2012. What happened in the interim? Well, it was Citizens United in 2010 and the floodgates were opened. The middle class is not just being flooded, it is being blindfolded too, because these wealthy special interest groups can often spend the money anonymously, so voters have no idea who is behind the endless attack ads that fill the airwaves. Here is how it works: If you have millions of dollars you want to spend, you can funnel it through back channels so that it ends up in the hands of a group--typically one with a generic and benign-sounding name. I was trying to invent a name, such as ``Americans for More America'' and ``American America.'' I was kind of joking around, and it turns out there is group that has that name. They use this money to buy ads and very often without disclosing the source of their funds. To me, this whole thing looks a lot like money laundering, except now it is perfectly legal. Again, this is real. A study just came out which showed that in the current election cycle alone there have already been over 150,000 ads run by groups that don't have to disclose the source of their funding, and things are just getting worse. Earlier this year, in a case called McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court was at it again, recklessly doing away with a law that prohibited people from giving more than $123,000 in the aggregate directly to candidates in an election cycle. The limit had been $123,000. Who has that kind of money? Who has that kind of money lying around to spend on elections? Well, I guess the super-rich have that kind of money, but the middle class certainly doesn't. The folks I meet with in Minnesota are trying to make ends meet, pay off their student loans, train for a new job, or save some money to start a family. They sure don't have that kind of money just lying around, and they are the folks who need a voice here in Washington. In June the Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the subject, and we heard from a witness whose presentation I found particularly persuasive and compelling. I suggest that my colleagues read his testimony. He was a State senator from North Carolina. He said: Suddenly, no matter what the race was, money came flooding in. Even elected officials who had been in office for decades told me they'd never seen anything like it. We were barraged by television ads that were uglier and less honest than I would have thought possible. And they all seemed to be coming from groups with names we had never heard of. But it was clear that corporations and individuals who could write giant checks had a new level of power in the state. He went on to explain that the vast majority of outside money that was spent on State races, including the Governor's race, came from one man--just one man--who reportedly poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into State politics. Before the Governor was even sworn into office, he announced who would write the State's budget. Yes, it was that same donor. Apparently, the donor got his money's worth. The budget he drafted was loaded with goodies for corporate interests and the super-rich, provided at the expense of middle-class and working folks. I find this whole thing incredibly disturbing, this idea that a handful of superwealthy corporate interests in effect can buy our democracy--or in this case one guy. That is not how it is supposed to work. Everyone is supposed to have an equal say in our democracy regardless of his or her wealth. The guy in the assembly line gets as many votes as the CEO--one. You don't get extra influence just because you have extra money--or you shouldn't. The government should be responsive to everyone and not just the wealthiest among us. The way I see it is we can go two ways from here. On the one hand, we can continue to let Citizens United be the law of the land. We can perpetuate the fallacy that corporations have the constitutional right to flood our elections with undisclosed money. We can let deep-pocketed special interests buy influence and access and then set the agenda for the rest of the country or we can say enough is enough. We can restore the law to what it was before Citizens United was decided. More to the point, we can restore the voice to millions upon millions of everyday Americans who want nothing more than to see their government represent them. That is the choice we have before us this week. For those of us who believe the measure of democracy's strength is in votes cast, not dollars spent--for us, I think it is an easy choice. I am going to vote to reverse Citizens United, and I urge my colleagues to do the same. I thank the Presiding Officer.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet, during the session of the Senate, on September 9, 2014, at 10 a.m., in room SD-430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Hearing on the nomination of Sharon Block to serve as a Member of the National Labor Relations Board.''

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 9, 2014, at 10:30 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Oversight of Federal Programs for Equipping State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies.''

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on September 9, 2014, at 10 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Judicial Nominations.''

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 9, 2014, at 10 a.m. in room SH-216 of the Hart Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ``The State of VA Health Care.''

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 9, 2014, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 9, 2014, at 4 p.m., to hold a hearing entitled, ``CLOSED/TS/SCI: Arms Control Compliance Issues.''

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 9, 2014, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Wall Street Reform: Assessing and Enhancing the Financial Regulatory System.''

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate of September 9, 2014, at 10 a.m. in room SD- 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.